


The Usual

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Australians in New York, Bagel AU, Gen, in a world where the apocalypse never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5298329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a harsh wasteland, one man wanders alone...seeking fuel and car parts...when he finds himself playing a part in someone else's story. Just for fun: a New York minute of a bagel AU!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Usual

Displaced and exhausted, Max wanted two things. His damn car parts shipment, and a coffee. Not a-cup-of-coffee, not the oily brew growing bitter in the workshop’s stingy percolator, a coffee. 

The coffee wasn’t optional. He was half-crazed with jet lag. He’d had to fly all the way to New York to growl at this manufacturer about his parts order. They were proud of manufacturing muscle car gear from Brooklyn. Max couldn’t see why. The remote industrial neighbourhood, a mess of warehouses shadowed by three oil refining towers, could have been anywhere. The workshop itself had a nasty tang of metal and chemicals. After sun-warmed spring faces back home, the staff looked pale and unhealthy, like they all needed a blood transfusion.  

The most anemic of the workshop blokes was maniacally cheerful. Max figured he was getting some better caffeine, and he was right. The bloke sent him to a bagel place nearby. “They’ve got everything there. The espresso maker’s chrome.” Max barely grunted thanks before trudging down the sidewalks of the industrial wasteland. 

A New Yorker’s few blocks was a good kilometer. Finally, Max found the place, where industrial buildings collided with a gentrifying thoroughfare. Squeezing into the narrow cafe, he saw why the garage bloke raved about it. The counter staff all looked like models. They were taking orders in rapid-fire code. The drinks menu didn’t include a flat white. There were twelve bagel choices and fifteen cream cheese options. Max couldn’t make head or tail of it. He checked behind the counter but, like everywhere here, there wasn’t a meat pie warmer to be seen. If he asked, they’d think he was out of his mind. 

As he hesitated, a woman on a bike pulled up outside. Motion always caught his eye. Max watched with approval as she kicked the bike into a u-lock. When she took off her helmet, her hair was shaved short above radical dark eye makeup. Did she have a fake arm? She had a fake arm. Max looked away hastily. Only in New York.  

She sauntered inside. Her no-nonsense air gave Max an idea. He slotted behind her in the queue, just as her phone rang. She answered it and listened. Whoever was on the other end of the call was a shouty arse, barely letting her get a word in edgewise. She snapped, “It was on time. They’ve got it. I was on time.” Inside the tiny shop, it was impossible not to listen. 

Max found himself sympathizing. He caught her profile, a study in fury, as she said, cold and measured, “Fuck you, Joe. Fuck this. Fuck your shitty courier business. I quit.” Her shoulders squared as her phone squawked. “You can’t rip up my timesheet, it’s 2015.” She silenced her phone and stepped up to the counter. The bagel models all applauded, as did a white-haired old lady picking up the world’s largest coffee. The courier half-smiled and said, gruffly, “Thanks. The usual.” Then, she stepped to one side so Max could order. 

So much for his plan. Max mumbled anyway, “I’ll have what she got.”

The register model cocked her eyebrow and said, “You’re sure?” Max grunted. She brushed back a straying red braid, and kept one eye on him as she called, “Another everything bagel, scooped, double-toasted, vegan chive cream cheese. Almond milk double macchiato. Name?”

“Max. My name is Max.”

His accent made her blink. “Where are you from?”

“Australia.” 

“That’s so chrome!” This must be the Brooklyn slang of the week. A shorter model brushed past her, holding out a brown paper bag. “Everything scooped dark toast chive vegan.” Max reached for the bag as the courier did, too. Their hands brushed. 

The courier gave him the same death glare her phone had received. Max said, “Sorry. So sorry. Jet lag.” He stepped back as far as the two-meter-wide space would let him. 

The register model handed her a cup with FURY and a little heart scrawled on it, then redeemed the moment by chirping, “He’s from Australia! Where in Australia?” 

“Outside Melbourne.” Yanks had no clue, it was easier to show them. He took out his own phone and flashed its main photo at them. 

The severe courier was transformed when she smiled. “That’s your place? It’s so 70s. And it’s really green. Aren’t you having a drought?” 

“That’s my wife in front. She’d know about that. Got more of the section here.” He swiped up the next photo. “And our sprog…the sprog again…uhhh…” After ten shots of his kid in his favourite muscle car, shots of his kid outside their house came up.  

The bagel model who’d been feeding the toaster squeezed out from behind the counter. Max noted the courier didn’t mind when this dark, intense little woman got in her space. “Is it true? You quit?” 

The courier’s dimple came out of hiding again. “Yeah. How about we run away to Australia?”

The toaster model took her dead seriously, and looked over her shoulder at Max. “It’s summer down there now, right?”

Max nodded.

“How easy is it to move there?”

Max hazarded, “You’re young. Won’t be a problem.”

The toaster model said, “I’ll go pack.” 

The other bagel models chorused, “Take us, too! We want to go, too!” 

“Here’s yours,” one of them added, handing Max a paper bag and a cup. 

Max ripped into the packaging. This was New York, you were supposed to have a bagel, but this wasn’t what he’d expected. It looked like a truck tire covered in burned shrapnel. He took a cautious bite. Delicious shrapnel, creamy and savory in the middle. The coffee was passable, too. One swallow made him feel saner. Max tucked in, wryly watching the women’s story unfolding in front of him. Only in New York, he thought, again. 

This was the kind of thing Jessie liked. He couldn’t wait to tell her.


End file.
